Rug



s. F. wAlTE Dec. 9, 1941.

RUG

Filed March 13, 1939 Patented Dec. 9, 1941 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE BUG Stanley E. Waite, Oshkosh, Wis., assignor to Waite Carpet Company, Oshkosh, Wis., a corporation of Wisconsin ApplicationMarch 13, 1939, Serial No. 261,506

1 Claim. (Cl. 2-278) 'I'he rug of the present invention is preferably of the tufted type in which lines of tuft stitching are passed through a backing of canvas or similar fabric and are cut to anord a pile surface. Since rugs of this character must be sewn by hand on a tufting machine, it has been found desirable in certain cases to make up the rug in sections, each of which is individually tufted and which sections are afterwards stitched together at their meeting edges. 'I'his method enables the relatively small sections to be easily manipulated by the operator on the tufting machine which would be difficult or impossible if it were attempted to manipulate the entire rug during the tufting operation especially where pattern designs of irregular contour are involved and where it is necessary to feed the backing at various angles or in various directions to secure the intended pattern effect. Although the stitching together of unit sections avoids the dimculty in manipulation of an entire rug during the tufting operation, the resultant effect in the completed rug is frequently objectionable in view of the fact that the stitching lines at the joints break through the pattern or through the plain surface of the rug so that they are easily visible and mar the appearance of the rug to a very marked degree.

The object of the present invention is to provide unit sections so congured as to effectively conceal the stitched Joints and provide a continuity in the pattern eiect so that the completed rug will be indistinguishable in appearance from one which is integrally formed without joint stitching.

Further objects and details will appear from a description of the invention in commotion with the accompanying drawing, wherein- Figure 1 is a view of a complete rug consisting of six units stitched together;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged View of one of the sections; and

Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken through line 3 3 of Fig. 1.

Each unit section A consists of a backing B f canvas or similar heavy fabric through which are stitched the lines of tuft stitching C to afford a low pile surface D of the usual character. At suitable intervals, the tuft stitching is elongated to afford elevated lines or areas of high pile E which stand up in relief from the low pile to afford a suitable pattern effect which in the present instance consists of ribs or lines in- The pattern unit in the present instance is subdivided by intersecting cross ribs E' into four comer sections, each of which displays a quarter of the complete pattern unit. Along two intersecting edges of the rug full width border ribs lil2 are formed, while along the remaining two edges half width border ribs lil:Il are formed.

Each rug unit section, therefore, presents in itself a complete pattern unit and also presents the corner constituents of identical pattern units which may be built up by the joining of the unit sections together as indicated in Fig. 1.

The union of the sections is effected by joint stitching F and by bringing together the half width border ribs E3 in assembling the sections. a full width high pile rib will be presented which effectively conceals the joint stitching and in character and width matches perfectly with the full width high pile ribs running through the pattern sections so that not only is the joint concealed by the high pile in the contiguous edges but also by maintaining the continuity of the pattern effect throughout al1 portions of the rug.

For purposes of illustration, a rug has been shown which is only two sections wide so that in each of the sections it is desirable to provide two edge ribs lil2 of full width and two edge ribs E3 of half width since the full width ribs are necessary to afford the border eect around the corners, but it will be noted that the complete rug is three sections in length so that the intermediate sections will have three edges with half width high pile ribbing and one edge only with full width high pile ribbing. In like manner. if the rug were of a width to completely enclose certain sections, the interior sections would on all of their edges have the half width ribbing for the purpose of union with contiguous edges of other sections likewise provided with ribs of half width.

'I'he object in each case is to maintain the continuity of the pattern by providing ribbing at the meeting edges of same width as the ribbing through the pattern sections so that it will be impossible to distinguish the joints or to distinguish between pattern units lying exclusively within a single unit section and pattern units made up by the combining of the corner constituents of four contiguous unit sections. It will be observed in Fig. 1 that 'the pattern unit displayed in the upper center of the rug which is made up of the corner constituents of four unit tersecting to aord what may be termed a patrug sections is identical in the arrangement of tern unit of the character displayed in Fig. 2.

the ribbing with each of the patterns individually displayed by the units themselves so that the patterncontinulty of the rug is everywhere maintained. For purposes of illustration, the joint divisions are indicated by dotted linesi but in the actual rug the stitching will be completely concealed at the joints so that the rug as a whole will present the appearance of an integrally formed rug.

It will of course be understood that the parcontinuity with the pattern displayed by the individual rug sections. thus harmonizing every portion of the rug unit in a unified structure indistinguishable from an integrally formed unit.

By the use of unit sections'made according to the principles of the present invention it is possible to build up complete rugs to varying sizes but all displaying the same pattern constituents, so that large and small rugs displaying the same pattern unit may be provided in eases where the furnishing of a house requires the use of harmonized rugs of diierent sizes. Moreover, by building a rug up in sections in the manner described, there is practically no limit to the size to which the rug may be extended, since it will consist simply in a multiplication of the individual units all so correlated as to maintain a harmonized pattern throughout. y

Although the present invention relates primarily to tufted rugs of the general character described, the principles here involved may be employed in connection with rug sections otherwise formed to display high and low pile areas, so that unless otherwise indicated in the claim it is not the intention to limit the invention solely to rugs formed by a tufting operation.

I claim: n

A rug comprising of at least four rectangular unit sections of equal size and affording the four corners of the rug and meeting at a center point and united along-their contiguous edges by stitching, each rug section having a ground aiorded by low pile tufting and having in each case the same pattern unit afforded by upstanding ribs of high pile tufting, each section also having around its entire border and as a constituent of the pattern unit ay rib of high pile tufting, and said border tufting along the meeting edges in conjunction aording high pile ribs adapted to conceal the stitching and equal in width .with y the marginal high pile border-ribs of the section pattern units, said pattern units and border tufting cooperating in such a way that the individual pattern unit of each section wlll be repeated by the combination of the inner comer portions of the four meeting sections so that repetitions of the same pattern unit will be displayed indistinguishably in each individual pattern unit composing the corners of the rug and in the composite pattern unit afforded by the meeting edges of the sections across the lines of stitching so that the ribs at the meeting edges in the composite pattern unit will correspond in width with interior rib constituents of the individual 'pattern units.

. STANLEY E. WAITE. 

